Uganda Dispatch #9: Home Turf Ambivalence

I'm thankful to be spending time with my family.

That's the conclusion I came to Thursday, which has all sorts of implications for us, my loyal readers and deleters. First, the rumors are true, whether you've heard them or not. I'm back in the States for the holidays, and it feels like it too, after feasting on turkey and stuffing with Mom, Dad, my sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and all.

Second, Thursday was that grand ole' holiday Thanksgiving, which hearkens back to a day when the people who had lived in America since long before it was America saved some newcomers' lives. They all ate together, the myth goes, until they were so full of turkey and cranberry sauce that they invented American football just so they could sit back and watch it. These newcomers, sometime down the road, declared war on the locals and eventually wiped enough of them out to claim all the land as their own.

The strange thing is they never stopped celebrating that early day when their lives were saved. We still celebrate it. We put on 2nd grade pageants about it, with feathered second graders bringing cardboard turkeys to second graders dressed in severe black and white. They sit happily together and pass the corn as the audience remembers the old story and marvels at how well the second graders portray it. And then we come together around real turkeys and happily remember that early day with the warmth of the colors on the tablecloth - orange, brown, yellow - and talk about how we are thankful, just like our forebears.

Americans, I think, aren't very good at ambivalence. On Thanksgiving we celebrate the joy of that early day but we forget the years of sorrow, the black destiny of the natives that the white man made manifest. This goes for current events as well. People these days are either friends or evil doers; countries are allies or targets. Our country seems incapable of subtlety. After all, if we display anything but single-minded certainty then the terrorists have won.

But ambivalence is alright, or at least I hope it is, because I'm ambivalent about a lot of things. I'm ambivalent about eating leftovers for days while so many go without meals. I'm ambivalent about being back in the luxurious comfort of America while some of my friends give their daily thanks in IDP camps. I'm ambivalent about my country sticking its nose and guns across borders around the world in the name of protecting me.

It's okay to be ambivalent America, in fact I think you should be. How can you escape ambivalence in the face of the gaps in wealth, health and life expectancy between where you live and places like Sudan, Burma, North Korea. I would not deny you the appreciation of what you have, so long as you don't deny that everyone deserves just as much.

So let's be ambivalent together - intensely thankful for the abundance we enjoy, happy above words in bringing our families together and sharing this feast with them, and at the same time aware of the great sorrow in the world, mourning with those who mourn for lack of those things that we celebrate.

Let's be real.

So, that out of the way, give me a call my friends! Same old cell phone number (if you don't have it, email me). I'm slowly catching up with people and would love to hear from, well, most of you anyway. The rest know who they are (yes, that means you).

Let's go be ambivalent about some over-priced coffee.